Touched
by Kay Taylor
Summary: Percy has fantasies about his brothers' hands.


Percy has always looked up to his older brothers. Bill arrives home for the summer with sweets and small presents and – best of all – stories about Egypt and tombs and the dry ancient smell of crumbling papyrus. He's good at so many things, things that Percy knows he'll never be able to do himself. He can read hieroglyphics and set broken bones, and one day he takes Percy to the British Museum with him, giving each shrouded figure in the Mummy Room a curse and a name. It's dimly lit in the upper galleries, and Bill twines his fingers with his little brother's, speaking in hushed tones, as if he's afraid to break the silence. They have milkshakes in the tea shop on the ground floor, and to this day, Percy can't stand the taste of banana.  
  
It tastes like Bill. Or rather, how a thirteen-year old Percy imagines that Bill would taste – sweet but not _too_ sweet, and he's unable to finish the glass, pushing it silently across the table. Bill takes it from him, strong tanned hands wrapping around the frosted glass, wet with tiny beads of moisture. When Bill puts his arm around Percy's shoulders later, steering him through the crowds in the Abyssinian collection, the palm of his hand is damp on Percy's T-shirt. Percy stares at the finger marks afterwards - dark against his faded blue shirt – and remembers the reassuring weight of Bill's hand.  
  
The blue shirt was Charlie's, once, and their mother had given it to Percy while it was still a little too big for him. The first time Charlie saw him wearing it, he had grinned and ruffled Percy's hair, teasing Bill about being the only Weasley not to suffer hand-me-downs. Percy had scowled at Charlie – he hated people touching his hair, and still does, not that it makes the blindest bit of difference to his older brothers – and tried to pull away from his touch.  
  
Hands. That's what comes to mind when Percy thinks of the two of them. Not because they touch him any more than brothers would, but because Percy remembers. He spreads his own hands wide in the warm glow of the night-light, tracing the veins through his pale skin, the faint grooves and lines of his palm, the ink stains on the middle and third fingers of the right hand. He knows his own hands like the inside of his head, but not half as well as he knows Bill or Charlie's. At the last Cannons game of the season, all the tickets had sold out but the standing tickets – right up against the edge of the stands, in a hard crush of people and noise and the smell of sugar drifting across from the refreshment stalls. Charlie had lifted Percy up to see the pitch, one hand on each side of Percy's waist, and Percy can still remember how his shirt rode up or his cast-off trousers rode down, until Charlie was gripping him tightly, skin on skin.  
  
Charlie's hands are warm, the old scars and blisters rough against Percy's smooth skin. Percy remembers that he shivered from the cold breeze against his stomach. Maybe from the breeze, maybe from the delicious reassurance of those strong hands against his bare skin. They had noticed, of course, and hugged him to them, and wrapped him up in one of Bill's jumpers, the old wool slightly scratchy and weather-beaten. Bill smells of soap and pine needles, and his jumper is far too big for Percy. He also tastes of bananas – Percy is sure of this.  
  
He's not so sure of what Charlie would taste like, though, and watches him carefully for a clue. Once, he sneaks into their room while everyone is out playing Quidditch in the field – he knows where to look, after spending evenings sitting at the foot of their beds, watching them passing a bottle backwards and forwards. Sometimes they arm-wrestle, clumsily (with Percy as their judge) and have long arguments about who wins, before settling back down on the bed, Charlie's head on Bill's chest. Sometimes they gang up on Percy and tickle him, only he's not really ticklish, and they end up sprawled in a heap on the floor, their arms and legs all twined together. But the bottle of firewhiskey gives Percy no better idea of what Charlie's mouth would taste like – only makes him feel sick and slightly dizzy, and his brothers' hands are damp with sweat as they pull him to his feet, laughing and hushing him and bundling him off to his own room before their mother sees.  
  
Later that summer, though, things change. He's not so sure where it starts – Bill's hand brushing against his as he passes the sugar at breakfast, the sudden realisation that Charlie's lips would be _warm_ and taste ever so slightly of mint – but he suddenly knows that nothing in this world could ever feel as good as their hands on him.   
  
One day, Charlie comes in from a short Quidditch game with his friends, and sits across from Percy at the kitchen table, flexing his fingers in the worn burgundy gloves, torn and re-stitched and mended time after time. Percy wonders if he would be able to feel the heat of Charlie's hands through the beaten leather, and realises that he can't look his brother in the eye.  
  
That night, he _knows_ that the leather would be warm and supple, he knows that Bill would taste of bananas and Charlie of mint, and a great many other things. He knows what he wishes his brothers would do for him with those strong, capable hands, and has to squeeze his eyes tightly shut to stop seeing his own slender white fingers, the faint red marks on the back of his hand from where he'd had to stuff something, _anything_ into his mouth to stop himself screaming. He knows that he wants them to touch him. He knows.  
  
The next day, he falls over and skins his knee. It's nothing serious – he was reaching for a book on the top shelf of the living-room bookcase, stacked precariously up to the ceiling. But he comes down hard against the stool he was standing on, and there's a lot of blood. The sound of crashing books is enough to make Bill come in from the kitchen and kneel beside him. He runs his finger gently over the cut, but it doesn't hurt – just a dull sort of throbbing, and Percy protests that he's fine. Bill leans across him to pick up his wand, and he's close enough for Percy to smell soap and pine needles on his skin, close enough for his fingers to brush the inside of Percy's thigh – accidentally, for the most fleeting of moments, warm hand on bare skin – and close enough to make Percy lock himself in his room for the next two hours, sprawled on the bed, his breathing shallow.  
  
He wants to be _touched_. He's never alone, especially not at night, not when the memory of Bill and Charlie's hands are with him, on him, all over him. He makes that one small moment, the touch of Bill's hand, so maddeningly close, last him for nights. He wishes he could just crawl into bed with the two of them, and the idea makes his skin prickle.  
  
It's the warmest day of summer, and their parents have taken the twins, Ron and little Ginny to the village to buy ice-cream. It's a treat for all of them, but Percy is behind on his homework, and they promise to bring him something back – a bag of penny sweets, or a twist of liquorice allsorts – as he waves them off from the front step. He's spread his books and parchment all over the cracked red stone, hoping to finish his essay on Gringotts before Ron and Ginny come back and walk all over it. Secretly, Percy also hopes that Bill and Charlie will come down from the attic and sit next to him, close enough for their knees to touch, for Bill to explain the Goblin Code of Practice in his calm, steady voice and for Charlie to persuade them all to make milkshakes instead. But the sun slowly warms the steps and makes Percy start to sweat, and his older brothers are nowhere to be seen.  
  
It's the warmest day of summer, too warm to close the door or windows, and a cool breeze plays over Bill and Charlie's bare skin, sticky with sweat. They're kissing wetly, long slow kisses that slide into each other, making Bill moan softly as Charlie rubs a saliva-moistened hand over the head of Bill's cock, each blister and ridge of his hand hitting a sensitive spot on the heated skin. Bill's hands are tangled in Charlie's hair, warm and damp, tugging them closer together. It's not the first time they've done this, and it won't be the last. Charlie slides deep into Bill, their breathing loud enough to fill the small room with little gasps and murmurs of pleasure.  
  
Lost in each other, in red hair and hands and lips, the slow movement of Charlie inside his brother, neither of them can see Percy. He's standing in the doorway, eyes wide. And his hands are gripping the doorframe so tightly that his knuckles have turned white.


End file.
